RFID tracking tags on the way, says Malaysia

According to a report in Tech Times, the Malaysian government and Road Transport Department (JPJ) are planning to introduce the use of radio-frequency identification (RFID)-enabled road-tracking stickers on vehicles.

The government hopes that the use of RFID technology will enable it to track vehicles to monitor and predict congestion patterns and decrease crime. The tags would also fit into the Malaysian Highway Authority’s plan for electronic payment implementation without the presence of toll plazas.

It is expected that the total number of registered vehicles in Malaysia will rise to 28 million by 2018, a 5.3 per cent increase from 2012.

As per the government plan, RFID implementation will take place over the course of the next three years and in multiple phases. “This October, we will begin the pilot stage of the RFID-base for VEP [Vehicle Entry Permit] tags for all types of vehicles – both local and foreign – which travel in and out of the Malaysia-Singapore border checkpoints,” said Deputy Transport Minister Datuk Aziz Kaprawi.

The second and third phases, scheduled to be implemented in 2016 and 2017, would be to tag foreign-registered vehicles from Thailand, Brunei, and Indonesia.